As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."

Friday, April 17, 2009

The Line Of Secession

With all the talk of secession in the air, Rasmussen polled Texans about it, and they found that 31% thought that " individual states have the right to leave the United States and form an independent country," and 18% answered yes to "If you could vote on the issue, would you vote for Texas to remain in the United States or to secede from the United States and form an independent country of Texas?"

Roughly one out of every five people in the state of Texas think they should go ahead and form an independent country. If you're in line at the bank with five people, one of them believes this.

Now, Rick Perry, the king of the 18 percenters, wants us to believe he wasn't calling for secession, just asserting the sovereignty of the state of Texas under the 10th Amendment. This is classic Overton window stuff, putting secession on the extreme while making this assertion of sovereignty - and by extension the belief that the President is violating the Constitution - seem banal and reasonable. But of course, this is ridiculous. The President in the stimulus package offers the states the ability to accept federal funds, with certain qualifying guidelines. States can comply to the guidelines and accept the funds, or refuse the funds. That actually is the very definition of the 10th Amendment. It's not the President's fault that, during a recession, it would be deeply unpopular not to change the guidelines. Indeed, Secessionist Perry's own legislature in Texas voted to accept stimulus money for unemployment by changing their guidelines. Which I guess makes King Richard want to secede from the Texas legislature.

Now, back to that 18% number. 18% of the voting public from the last election would be around 20 million people. Which puts the 250,000 or so teabaggers in perspective, doesn't it? Basically, that was a collection of people so angered by losing power that they want to either create their own country or forcibly take back this one. In other words, nutters.